Star comment: New tests offer real deterrent
In November 2014 a driver under the influence of three types of drugs, including cocaine, was responsible for a head-on crash at Bomere Heath.
A pensioner in the other car was killed, and his wife was seriously injured.
Jailed initially for four and a half years, the sentence was increased on appeal the other day. The offender's sentence was upped to seven and a half years.
This is a case which underlines two things. One is that there are people who are under the influence of drugs who are driving on Shropshire's roads, a potential hazard to themselves and other road users. And the second is perhaps even more important. It is that these people can now be detected and caught.
In comparison to drugs users, drink-drivers have been easy to detect. Often they advertise themselves with the erratic manner of their driving. Even if they do not, if they are stopped by police they betray themselves by the way they look, the smell on their breath, and the way they act.
Drugs have been hidden, disguised, a secret that nobody but the motorist might know. Police have been hampered by the lack of weaponry to detect those who take to the wheel when under the influence of drugs.
That has changed as officers now have equipment which is the equivalent to the breathalyser in that it screens for cannabis and cocaine.
Drivers who have got away with it for years now face the prospect of being caught and losing their licence through the introduction of the new kit and new laws which have closed a loophole.
Amazingly, drug screening tests in the 2015 Christmas period in England and Wales proved positive for drugs in nearly half of the cases, which ran to nearly 2,000.
That seems to point to a much bigger problem than anyone could have imagined, because obviously on top of those tested positive have to be added those motorists who were not stopped and tested.
Alternatively, it could point to the equipment being extremely sensitive.
Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is a side argument. The central point is that there are, unfortunately, a lot of drugs within modern society and that those who take to the roads having used them are acting in an irresponsible manner and need to be made to think again.
